


Time Will Have His Fancy

by marginalia



Category: History Boys (2006), History Boys - All Media Types, History Boys - Bennett
Genre: M/M, arrogant bastards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-19
Updated: 2007-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/pseuds/marginalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dakin/Irwin. Bits of both play & film canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Will Have His Fancy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rilla

 

 

It was a silly and unexpected thing, but when they went down for the interviews, for most of the boys, it was their first time properly away from home alone. Initially they wandered the streets in packs, taking in the sights, and snapping photographs, but as time wore on they pulled away for their own individual brands of preparation, Scripps on his knees in Christ Church, Rudge off for a run, and Dakin at a bit of a loss.

He wandered for a bit, hands in pockets, looking for any resemblance to aged relatives or teachers in the stone heads across the road. Hopping out the of the way of a bicyclist, he found himself in front of Blackwell. There was a map hanging in a window, and when he looked at it closer, he realized with a start that he was rather near Corpus. They had probably passed it in their wanderings, but most places that looked like colleges probably were colleges, and they were starting to blend together.

If Dakin had been a fanciful sort of person, if he had been Posner, perhaps, he would have imagined the ghost of Irwin's youth all around him immediately, sparkling just out of sight. Instead, he turned investigatory, arriving at Corpus only to turn and explore the surroundings, paying closer attention this time. Irwin wasn't that much older than him, not really. Not in the scheme of things. It couldn't have been very long since he had been there, walking in this place, stopping in at this pub, sitting on these steps. Would he have been bolder back then? Or a boy made of mere talk to match the man?

Dakin retraced his steps back to the college, and charmed the porter into giving him a look at the list. "No Irwin here," said the porter.

"Thank you. I must have got it wrong," Dakin said, in a tone which was anything but uncertain. Perhaps Irwin's true boldness was in his lies.

::

Scripps wasn't surprised. "He's always telling us to lie. Small wonder he does it himself."

Dakin filed it away, in this case the more determined reporter. It was soon joined by a series of other facts; the times when he caught Irwin watching, the moment in the shed when they were hiding from the headmaster, and Irwin after, always backing away, shifting his mask back into place. The flicker in Irwin's eye that might have been the light off of his glasses, but even as Dakin thought this he knew it for a lie.

He took all of these things, added them together, and reflected on the subjunctive, on that which might or might not have happened. He was briefly astonished at his own boldness. He chose to act.

In the classroom that day, with roles of teacher and student gone in fact if not in effect, he considered touching Irwin. There, at the window, slipping his hand inside his shirt, feeling his heart racing, driving some sort of expression to his face beyond the feeble, fearful smile. Dakin suspected if he tried, Irwin would be across the room in a flash, no matter what his eyes or his pocket diary had to say about it. Perhaps he could only be bold in a space other than this. Perhaps they would see this on the date appointed, but Dakin wasn't certain he wanted to participate in anything so painfully planned.

In spite of everything he was surprised that Irwin had agreed.

::

In a horrible way, the accident served as an escape for Dakin. An unexpected consequence of tragedy, the postponement of fear. Dakin pushed it all aside, shook hands with Irwin, held up by crutches at Hector's funeral. "There is no 'barring accidents'", Scripps reminded him, but Dakin wasn't sure. He went off to Oxford, diving into the metaphorical big pond and fucking the first guy he sparked with in a debate. After, he could never remember the fellow's name, but he remembered the glasses and the freckles, and madly rubbing off against each other in the dark, a far from controlled explosion, intellectual energy going straight to his cock.

::

Dakin had girlfriends, of course. A string of them, nearly always a few years older. If any of them knew about the men they said nothing about it, and none of the men were ever around long enough to care. In his third year, his girlfriend at the time got up to switch on the television. He lit a cigarette and admired her, the glow from the television on her bare skin, until a channel caught his eye as she flicked past.

"Wait," he said, sitting up straighter. "Go back."

"It's just some history program," she said as she found it again. "Dull as anything, I expect. My mother watches it." She sat back on the foot of the bed.

It was Irwin, at some ruin or another, undoubtedly taking the opposite point of view to accepted historical fact. Dakin didn't know. He couldn't process the words, only the tone of voice, the confidence he'd had in the classroom with a new layer of arrogance born of television exposure. It went straight through him.

"Can I keep going?" The girl looking back, questioning.

"Of course," he said. "Thought it was something else."

::

Dakin had played possibilities over in his mind so many times that he thought he must be imagining things when he rounded a corner in a shop and saw Irwin turning milk bottles to check the dates.

"I never saw you out of school in Sheffield, and now you're here in Oxford?"

"We're shooting," Irwin said. "You'll have to watch the program if you want more."

"I do watch it," Dakin said. "Sometimes. You're doing well." _You look well_. Being on television had been good for Irwin. The degree of confidence that had been missing back in Sheffield wasn't limited to the performance for the camera. Dakin wondered if Irwin could be bold now, or if it had been too long. It hadn't for him, and Irwin wasn't backing away this time. Dakin's heart was racing, and he wanted to impress. It was as though no time had passed at all. "Are you doing anything tonight?" he asked. He nearly called him "sir".

"Nothing that can't wait."

"Let me buy you a drink," Dakin offered, and immediately winced.

"A drink," Irwin said, deliberately. "I'd like that." He wrote down an address. "Eight?"

"Eight," Dakin agreed.

::

Dakin arrived fifteen minutes early, surprised to find a house at the address. "It belongs to a friend of someone," Irwin said, showing him in. "Traveling. So much more comfortable than a hotel." He was a force unlike any he'd been as a teacher, constrained by the classroom. He was no longer afraid to take up space. "A drink, then?"

"I think not," said Dakin, reaching for Irwin's shirtfront.

"Not one to waste time?"

"Wasted enough as it is."

::

In the morning, Irwin was up and cooking nearly before Dakin was awake. "I am aware of the cliche," Irwin said, as Dakin padded bare foot into the kitchen and collapsed in a chair. "But it's really true. Without Sean around, I can rarely force myself to cook properly."

"And he really doesn't mind?"

"Mind?"

"This," Dakin gestured. "Last night."

"Not at all," Irwin said, handing him a coffee. "We didn't break any of the rules."

"What are the rules?"

Irwin peered at him, softer without his glasses. "I'll let you know if you're in danger."

"Can I see you tonight?"

"Only if you make good on the drink."

 


End file.
